The Brooke-Hancock-Jefferson Metropolitan Planning Commission is once again conducting traffic studies in Steubenville.

JEFFERSON COUNTY, Ohio —

The Brooke-Hancock-Jefferson Metropolitan Planning Commission is once again conducting traffic studies in Steubenville.

The project to collect traffic data started earlier this week and wraps up Thursday.

Every three years, crews working for the BHJ lay down pneumatic tubes in several locations in Steubenville. They're tracking the speed and number of cars driving through the city.

Between Market and 4th Streets, there are at least a dozen pumped-up tubes that test the speed and frequency of vehicles driving over them. The BHJ actually collects this type of data every year in various areas in the Brooke, Hancock and Jefferson Counties, but in a staggered approach. According the BHJ's website, the last time the Steubenville business district had data collected was in 2015, so this year, the city is due in the cycle.

Here's a look at the most recent comparable data that was taken just beyond the Market Street Bridge in Steubenville:

Data acquired in 2007 show average daily traffic crossing the bridge was about 3,110 vehicles with .24 percent of the traffic trucks; average speed 25 mph.

Then, data collected at the same spot in 2015 show an increase of average daily traffic by 350 vehicles to 3,460. The average speed remained the same at 25 mph over the 8-year period, but truck traffic slightly increased to .42 percent.

The data is significant for paving, planning and long-term modeling for infrastructure. And it's often correlative with economic growth and decline. The question is, what will 2018 data show?

This traffic study is also a traffic advisory. Thursday, crews working for BHJ will be back out to extract these pneumatic tubes.

NEWS9 then catch up with the BHJ director once the data is collated to see what they found out.